Sorry Nature, Brian Strang

Monday, December 18, 2017

A great big thank you to everyone who came to the opening yesterday! The paintings will be up through January. If you're interested in a piece, let me know so I can set it aside for you, but all sales go through the cafe, not directly to me. Prices are listed below. My email can be found in "About Me" at the bottom of the right column. I'm going to donate half of everything I make (after the cafe's commission) to Joaquin Miller Elementary School. Happy Winter!

The Kingdom Is Within

An Exhibit of paintings by Brian Strang, "The Kingdom Is Within," is now hanging at Awaken Cafe through the end of January. Come check it out!

Awaken Cafe
1429 Broadway (@15th Street)
Oakland, CA

Brian Strang

About Brian Strang’s painting, the SF Bay Guardian has said, “Strang’s work... suggests a more romantic pleasure in and response to visual phenomena. It betrays a rhythmic sensibility not unlike that found in a sketch by Matisse” (6/13/07).

His paintings, which all contain written poetic text, have been exhibited many times over the last ten years in solo and group shows, have been republished in magazines and currently reside in many private collections. He has lived in East Oakland for fifteen years and teaches English at San Francisco State University. His most recent poetry collection, Dark Adapt, is available at Duration Press. His artwork, poems, reviews, essays and translations have appeared in many journals including New American Writing, Five Fingers Review, The Denver Quarterly and Caliban. He plays guitar in Crow Crash Radio.

The Kingdom Is Within

The relationship between the human and natural has been ingrained in our psyches for centuries as an adversarial one. But while each of us leaves footprints on the ecosystem, we exist within it. After all, who is not a part of nature? Ashes to ashes. We are all part of what poet Gary Snyder has called “one vast breathing body.”

Imagination and dreaming provide deep connections with commonality. They provide direction and context. We must learn to be guided by nature more accurately, to listen to its myriad complexity, its interconnection so pervasive that it exceeds our limitations. We must listen with imagination and follow the ancient elemental poetry of the world, even when it seems perilous.

Poetry is encoded within the forms all around us; one only has to look closely to see it. I paint to discover the world and to imagine it anew.